COMPUTER FUNDAMENTALS

(HISTORY OF COMPUTER)
The first counting device was used by the
primitive people. They used sticks, stones and
bones as counting tools. As human mind and
technology improved with time more
computing devices were developed.
COMPUTING
DEVICES:

Abacus
 The first computer. It is said that Chinese
invented Abacus around 4,000 years ago.
 It was a wooden rack which has metal rods with
beads mounted on them. The beads were
moved by the abacus operator according to
some rules to perform arithmetic calculations.
Abacus is still used in some countries like
China, Russia and Japan.

Note:
 While not technically a computer, the abacus is
known as the first calculating tool.
COMPUTING
DEVICES:

Napier's Bones
 It was a manually-operated
calculating device which was invented
by John Napier (1550-1617) of
Merchiston. In this calculating tool, he
used 9 different ivory strips or bones
marked with numbers to multiply and
divide. So, the tool became known as
"Napier's Bones. It was also the first
machine to use the decimal point.
COMPUTING
DEVICES:

Pascaline
 Pascaline is also known as Arithmetic Machine or
Adding Machine. It was invented between 1642
and 1644 by a French mathematician-philosopher
Biaise Pascal. It is believed that it was the first
mechanical and automatic calculator.
 Pascal invented this machine to help his father, a
tax accountant. It could only perform addition and
subtraction. It was a wooden box with a series of
gears and wheels. When a wheel is rotated one
revolution, it rotates the neighboring wheel. A
series of windows is given on the top of the wheels
to read the totals. An image of this tool is shown
below;
COMPUTING
DEVICES:

Stepped Reckoner or Leibnitz wheel

 It was developed by a German
mathematician-philosopher
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz in 1673.
He improved Pascal's invention to
develop this machine. It was a
digital mechanical calculator which
was called the stepped reckoner as
instead of gears it was made of
fluted drums
COMPUTING
DEVICES:

Difference Engine
 In the early 1820s, it was designed
by Charles Babbage who is known
as "Father of Modern Computer". It
was a mechanical computer which
could perform simple calculations.
It was a steam driven calculating
machine designed to solve tables
of numbers like logarithm tables.
COMPUTING
DEVICES:

Analytical Engine
 This calculating machine was also
developed by Charles Babbage in
1830. It was a mechanical
computer that used punch-cards
as input. It was capable of solving
any mathematical problem and
storing information as a
permanent memory.
COMPUTING
DEVICES:

Tabulating Machine
 It was invented in 1890, by Herman
Hollerith, an American statistician. It was
a mechanical tabulator based on punch
cards. It could tabulate statistics and
record or sort data or information. This
machine was used in the 1890 U.S.
Census. Hollerith also started the
Hollerith?s Tabulating Machine Company
which later became International
Business Machine (IBM) in 1924.
COMPUTING
DEVICES:

Differential Analyzer
 It was the first electronic computer
introduced in the United States in
1930. It was an analog device invented
by Vannevar Bush. This machine has
vacuum tubes to switch electrical
signals to perform calculations. It could
do 25 calculations in few minutes.
COMPUTING
DEVICES:

Mark I
 The next major changes in the
history of computer began in 1937
when Howard Aiken planned to
develop a machine that could
perform calculations involving large
numbers. In 1944, Mark I computer
was built as a partnership between
IBM and Harvard. It was the first
programmable digital computer.
GENERATIONS
OF COMPUTERS

 A generation of computers refers to the specific improvements in

computer technology with time.
 In 1946, electronic pathways called circuits were developed to
perform the counting.
 It replaced the gears and other mechanical parts used for counting
in previous computing machines.
 in each new generation, the circuits became smaller and more
advanced than the previous generation circuits. The
miniaturization helped increase the speed, memory and power of
computers.
5 GENERATIONS
OF COMPUTERS

POPULAR FIRST GENERATION First Generation Computers

COMPUTERS
 The first generation (1946-1959)
computers were slow, huge and
expensive. In these computers,
vacuum tubes were used as the
basic components of CPU and
memory. These computers were
mainly depended on batch
operating system and punch
cards. Magnetic tape and paper
tape were used as output and
input devices in this generation;
5 GENERATIONS
OF COMPUTERS

POPULAR SECOND
GENERATION COMPUTERS Second Generation Computers

 The second generation (1959-1965) was the era

of the transistor computers. These computers
used transistors which were cheap, compact
and consuming less power; it made transistor
computers faster than the first generation
computers.
 In this generation, magnetic cores were used as
the primary memory and magnetic disc and
tapes were used as the secondary storage.
Assembly language and programming
languages like COBOL and FORTRAN, and
Batch processing and multiprogramming
operating systems were used in these
computers.
5 GENERATIONS
OF COMPUTERS

POPULAR THIRD GENERATION

COMPUTERS Third Generation Computers

 The third generation computers used

integrated circuits (ICs) instead of transistors. A
single IC can pack huge number of transistors
which increased the power of a computer and
reduced the cost. The computers also became
more reliable, efficient and smaller in size.
These generation computers used remote
processing, time-sharing, multi programming
as operating system. Also, the high-level
programming languages like FORTRON-II TO
IV, COBOL, PASCAL PL/1, ALGOL-68 were used
in this generation.
5 GENERATIONS
OF COMPUTERS

POPULAR FOURTH
GENERATION COMPUTERS
Fourth Generation Computers

 The fourth generation (1971-1980)

computers used very large scale
integrated (VLSI) circuits; a chip
containing millions of transistors and
other circuit elements. These chips
made this generation computers more
compact, powerful, fast and affordable.
These generation computers used real
time, time sharing and distributed
operating system. The programming
languages like C, C++, DBASE were also
used in this generation.
5 GENERATIONS
OF COMPUTERS

POPULAR FIFTH GENERATION

COMPUTERS
Fifth Generation Computers

 In fifth generation (1980-till date)

computers, the VLSI technology was
replaced with ULSI (Ultra Large Scale
Integration). It made possible the
production of microprocessor chips
with ten million electronic components.
This generation computers used parallel
processing hardware and AI (Artificial
Intelligence) software. The
programming languages used in this
generation were C, C++, Java, .Net, etc.